One of the movies under most people’s radar is director Wes Ball‘s The Maze Runner. Based on the James Dashner’s young adult novel of the same name, the story centers on a group of teens who appear in an area known as “The Glade” but have no memory when they wake up. The only way out appears to be through a shifting maze of massive walls that harbor dangerous creatures known as Grievers. Only one of the teens, Thomas (Dylan O’Brien), holds the secret to their escape. With the film hitting theaters February 14, 2014, you can expect a trailer in the coming months, and a lot more info on the film. Until then…you’ll just have to trust me when I say it’s a film that could be very cool.
Last weekend at Comic-Con, I landed an exclusive video interview with Ball. He talked about how he landed the job, adapting the book and making changes, shooting on location, the poisonous snakes (with pictures!), planting seeds for potential sequels, the VFX, the status of the feature version of Ruin (based on his short film he sold to Fox), and more. Hit the jump to watch.
And if you missed my interview with Dylan O'Brien for The Maze Runner, click here.
Wes Ball Time Index:
- :08 – When did he find out they were coming to Comic-Con?
- :45 – Describes the film as Lord of the Flies meets Lost.
- 1:55 – Adapting the book and making changes.
- 2:32 – Planting the seeds in the movie for potential sequels, since it’s a book series.
- 3:05 – They shot on digital because of the schedule and because they had a significant amount of VFX.
- 3:55 – The challenges of shooting on location.
- 4:29 – Talks about the poisonous snakes that they found on set and shows a picture.
- 5:25 – How he landed the project being a first-time filmmaker. Tells the story of how he came up through film school and eventually landed the Maze Runner gig.
- 7:45 – Tells the story of how he came to be juggling two feature films with Maze Runner and Ruin.
- 9:12 – His background in VFX and whether he’ll be doing any VFX work himself on Maze Runner.
